Groupon reports net loss in first earnings, still doing great if you don’t count what it spends
There were a lot of doubters who said Groupon was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme looking to cash out with an IPO. Groupon just reported its first quarterly earnings as a public company, and did better than many on Wall Street expected. Yet the stock is taking a beating, dropping 15 percent after hours trading.
The daily-deals company announced that revenue and active customers were way up on a year-over-year basis. The company said … Continue Reading
Extole turns regular customers into brand ambassadors, raises $10M
Nearly every company has a social presence these days, but personal recommendations are often a more powerful way to boost sales. If you’ve never heard about a company before, but your friend has, you’ll likely trust her opinion over that of a complete stranger. But keeping track of how much customer referrals really help your business can be hard, so Extole has created a way to track word-of-mouth marketing.
The service seeks to find and … Continue Reading
It pays to time your tweets: SocialFlow debuts self-serve platform and eyes new funding
SocialFlow, which helps brands and publishers optimize their performance across Facebook and Twitter, is launching its self-service platform today. The company has had a banner year, growing from just 2 employees to more than 30 and graduating from the betaworks building to their own office on the east side of Manhattan.
To get a sense of how the company works, let's take the example from one of their clients, The Economist. With SocialFlow, which guides which messages The Economist puts out to its followers and when, the venerable publishers has grown its social media fanbase five times faster than average and increased engagement with its audience at a rate eight times greater than before it used Social Flow.
Twitter’s revenue expected to nearly double in 2012
Twitter is expected to see $259.9 million in revenue in 2012, up from $139.5 in 2011.
Over the next couple of years, the company’s revenue is forecast to reach $399.5 million in 2013 and $540 million by 2014.
Year-over-year revenue growth for 2011 to 2012 is estimated to be at 83 percent; that growth rate is expected to slow to 36 percent by 2014.
For a company that (rather famously) didn’t have a business model … Continue Reading
Find your startup’s voice: Why I hired a journalist to run my company blog
As a CEO of a startup, my online voice – a blog called Greg’s Corner — is the place where I share my company news, try to differentiate myself from competitors, and showcase the value I’m offering. But until about a year ago, my online voice wasn’t saying much.
I knew what I wanted to say in these posts but I struggled to find the right words to express my thoughts. I knew my blog … Continue Reading
Last week Steve Jobs was a doll, this week, a comic book
BANG! POW! SIMPLIFYING THE USER EXPERIENCE! Steve Jobs is being immortalized yet again, this time in comic book form.
The comic book is titled “Steve Jobs: Founder of Apple and is scheduled to hit Amazon as well as physical newsstands and comic books stores on Wednesday. Soon after Jobs’ death in October, people became hungry for more on his life story. Walter Isaacson’s biography was hugely anticipated, but despite its completeness, people still wanted more. … Continue Reading
CES tips for startups: The smartest thing you can do is wear your company t-shirt
Chances are if you’re working in tech then you’ve spent time deliberating over which of the multitude of conferences, events and shows you should attend in 2012. Time out of the office is a luxury most startups can’t afford, so how can you justify CES, NAMM, Macworld, Mobile World Congress, SXSW, plus the hundred or so others you’re considering?
The rule of thumb is that a few crucial conferences are a must, and that it’s … Continue Reading
With $53.4M more funding, Lithium says social will change marketing as we know it
Lithium‘s goal is to make your existing customer base like the stands at a Raiders winning home game — crazy about your brand. The company announced a $53.4 million fourth round of funding today, which will be used to create those grassroots marketers.
For Rob Tarkoff, chief executive officer of Lithium, social is the next frontier for marketers. Lithium uses social media — beyond Facebook, as Tarkoff stresses — to connect with a brand’s customers … Continue Reading
Windows Phone’s big bet: Nokia Ace to get massive $100M marketing push
How important is the upcoming Nokia Ace Windows Phone? Important enough that Microsoft, Nokia, and AT&T are willing to pour $100 million into a massive marketing campaign for the phone.
The Ace, which is expected to launch exclusively on AT&T in March, is being positioned as a “hero” device by the carrier and Microsoft, reports Betanews. That means AT&T will promote the phone through advertising, in stores, and via store associates.
It’s the sort of … Continue Reading
Car service Uber passes economics test, fails marketing
Users of startup car service Uber got quite a shock from the company’s demand-based pricing on New Year’s Eve. The company implemented a New Year’s surcharge that stuck San Francisco-based Uber user Dan Darcy with a $63 bill for traveling 0.73 miles. (That’s a rate of $86.30 per mile.)
Darcy was one of many users of the smartphone-based on-demand car service to complain about the high New Year’s pricing. He called Uber around 1:45 a.m. … Continue Reading
How Facebook will take over the rest of the world in 2012
It’s hard to believe that in 2009, Facebook was insignificant compared to the rest of social media.
Even harder to fathom is that one year later, Facebook asserted its dominance and became the undeniable leader of the social landscape, representing more than 50 percent of all time spent on social websites.
It wasn’t certain whether Facebook’s fame would be fleeting, especially in the wake of privacy concerns, but in 2011, this doubt was put to … Continue Reading
Ocean Marketing holds N-Control’s digital accounts hostage, relents after more drama
You’d think that Ocean Marketing’s Paul Christoforo would try to avoid the limelight after one of the worst PR moves ever this week, but you’d be wrong.
Christoforo (pictured) was apparently holding the e-mail and social media accounts for the N-Control game controller hostage, according to Moisés Chiullan, who took over PR for the company after Christoforo was ousted. Chiullan went on to detail the situation in a Reddit AMA discussion (where people answer questions … Continue Reading
Rovio cracks nut market with new pistachio-branded Angry Birds game
The newest version of mega-popular game franchise Angry Birds isn’t a downloadable mobile app, but rather a web-based promotion built around California nut producer Wonderful Pistachios.
The free-to-play, five level promotional game — playable on a subsection of AngryBirds.com – features the now-ubiquitous, titular birds launching at both pigs and nuts hiding in half-separated pistachio shells. The game also has branded backgrounds including a pistachio orchard and a football game with nuts as snacks. A … Continue Reading
How infographics jumped the shark
We’ve tumbled headlong into the era of infographics.
Visual presentations of data are everywhere, popping up on every type of online publication (even VentureBeat). There are so many infographics on the Internet that some bloggers are lashing out against the trend, and there’s even a subset of infographics mocking the uselessness of infographics.
“I think you’re going to see infographics on the side of milk cartons, if you haven’t already,” said Visual.ly co-founder Lee Sherman. … Continue Reading
How the iPhone got tail fins: Lessons Apple learned from GM
Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.
It was the most advanced consumer product of the century. The industry started with its innovators located in different cities over a wide region. But within 20 years it would be concentrated in a single entrepreneurial startup cluster. At first it was a craft business, then it was driven by relentless … Continue Reading
Marketo launches lead-generation engine for small businesses
Marketing automation firm Marketo has launched a new brand targeting small businesses called Spark. Like Marketo, Spark is designed to help businesses generate leads and manage marketing efforts.
Marketo and competing providers like Eloqua, Genius, Pardot and Silverpop are part the emerging space of marketing automation. These companies are making it possible for businesses to improve sales lead generation and use a content management system to better connect businesses to their potential customers.
Marketo has … Continue Reading
It’s time for mobile marketers to unleash the power of data
Recently, I’ve had several conversations with the heads of marketing at large brands that surprised me. They have opt-in mobile lists of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of consumers who have raised their hands and said, “Yes, I love your brand and want to receive information from you on my mobile phone.”
A marketer’s dream, right? Yes and no.
Most marketers intuitively understand there is value in building mobile opt-in lists, but wonder “What … Continue Reading
How we quadrupled revenue by uniting sales and marketing
It’s time to scrap the dysfunctional, binary approach of “sales and marketing,” and look for a new system that harnesses the strengths of both groups to drive a company’s revenue. In order to do that, we must move past traditional sales cycles (and the supporting role marketing plays) and start attacking the entire revenue process with something called revenue performance management (RPM).
Death of a sales cycle
Most companies are very familiar with the concept … Continue Reading
Marketers: Don’t be creepy with social media
Social networking began as a personal communication tool. Friendster, MySpace and Facebook were all about friendships and dating. Today of course, social media has also become another arm of marketing.
Increasingly, businesses are actively promoting their brands and products, and sharing thought leadership content through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. When you interact with your company’s followers on these sites, it’s great to be bold, intelligent, fun and thought-provoking. But it’s more important to not … Continue Reading
Demo: Needium upgrades Twitter-monitoring service to help merchants find customers
The next time you post a tweet saying you’re hungry, you might be surprised to see a response in your @ reply stream, offering you a discount at the pizza joint down the block.
Needium, a “social media customer discovery platform,” could make that possible. The company announced an upgrade to its service today at Demo Fall 2011, a product showcase in Silicon Valley.
The company monitors and filters social media to look for tweets … Continue Reading
